CooperSurgical Adds to Its IVF Business

CooperSurgical (NYSE: COO), a subsidiary of The Cooper Companies, Inc., has added another medical device maker focused on women’s health. This is CooperSurgical’s first acquisition in 2018, and it didn’t go far from its Trumbull, Connecticut offices to find The LifeGlobal Group in Guilford, Connecticut.

LifeGlobal is a leading provider of in vitro fertilization (IVF) products and devices, with operating facilities in the United States, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong and distributors in some 90 countries worldwide.

The acquisition is expected to strengthen CooperSurgical’s fertility media offering and thus improve its industry leading fertility business overall.

The deal is valued at approximately $125 million, and is expected to be neutral to earnings per share in fiscal 2018 and accretive thereafter, excluding one-time charges and the like. LifeGlobal had annual revenues of approximately $24 million in calendar 2017, making for a 5.2x revenue multiple. It’s forecasted to grow in the mid- to upper-single digits “over the coming years,” according to The Cooper Companies press release.

That’s a far cry from 2017, when CooperSurgical paid $1.1 billion for Paragarda®, an intrauterine copper contraceptive that is placed in the uterus to prevent pregnancy for up to 10 years. The seller, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NYSE: TEVA), divested Paragarda from its Women’s Health business as part of an ongoing purge of products and divisions in 2017, as the Israeli drug maker sought to pay down debt incurred from its own $40.5 billion acquisition of Actavis’ generic drug business the year before.

Paragard had revenues of approximately $168 million for the trailing 12-month period ending June 30, 2017, making a 6.5x revenue multiple. The transaction included Teva’s manufacturing facility in Buffalo, New York, which produces Paragard exclusively.